1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to high power fiber laser systems, and in particular, to high power laser systems provided with a multi-port pigtailed directional selective router operating at high powers.
2. Prior Art
A multi-port optical component, such as circulators, is a light-directional device operative to route incoming signal between fibers. Configured as a multi-port structure, a circulator is operative to collect the light and direct it to a following output port. This operation is repeated over and over again depending on the number of ports. A light path between multiple ports is thus fixed and cannot be voluntarily changed.
Typically, optical circulators are used for low power applications such as bi-directional wavelength division optical multiplexing, bi-directional wavelength division optical add/drop multiplexing, three-way channel separation, bi-directional optical amplification, two-way multiplexing, three-way multiplexing, and optical dispersion compensation.
These devices have issues with handling high optical powers due to a number of reasons. First, the optical beam size is very small due to the compact size of this device. This, in turn, increases the optical intensity inducing either optical nonlinearities (such as thermal lensing) or decreasing the damage threshold of the device (in part by surface damage threshold and in part by bulk damage threshold). Second, the heat dissipation of the known devices may not be adequate because the heat path goes through epoxies and RTVs. Third, stress birefringence, due to non-uniform heating of optical components, causes changes in the optical properties of the components and degrades the optical performance. Fourth, the optical coatings, covering the components, do not have a high enough damage threshold. Sixth, the optical epoxy in the path of the optical beam has a low damage threshold. Due to one or a combination of these reasons, the known configurations of the optical circulator may not adequately handle high powers.
A need, therefore, exists for a CW and pulsed high power single-mode fiber laser systems each configured with a fiber pigtailed directional router that can operate powers of up to kWs.
Another need exists for a high power single mode fiber laser system with ring and coupled cavity configurations each provided with a fiber pigtailed directional router.
Another need exists for a high power single mode fiber system provided with a fiber pigtailed directional router configured to suppress parasitic signals so as to increase a threshold for optical nonlinearities.
Another need exists for a high power single mode pulsed fiber laser system with the wave-selecting router configured to provide for short pulse stretching and compressing in high power pulsed lasers.
A further need exists for a pigtailed directional router operative to combine and separate high power signals via wavelength division multiplexing.